Tuesday, August 2, 2011

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Supporting the Debt Ceiling Deal

I commend the Senator from Connecticut on his remarks and, particularly, his closing. I associate myself with what he said. I will support this bill when it comes to the floor at 12 o'clock today.

On Saturday, I came to the floor at 2 o'clock out of frustration and made a speech critical of the negotiators as we were letting the clock run and had no deal. I was critical because we had pretty much had an agreement we were going to cut. We pretty much had an agreement we were going to establish a select committee to do the cutting. But we had not agreed to a balanced budget amendment. We had not agreed to an enforcement mechanism on the committee to make sure they did the cutting. Probably most importantly of all, we had not agreed to triggers on the debt ceiling increase for accountability.

I come to the floor today not frustrated but feeling somewhat rewarded because on the three solutions negotiated to those three component parts of this particular piece of legislation, the genie is out of the bottle, and history is about to be made.

No. 1, on the debt ceiling increase, when the trigger was finally established, it means from now on whenever this debt ceiling increase is asked for by a Republican or Democratic President, it will be demanded that there be spending cuts commensurate with any increase. That is historic. That is the first step in the right direction of sanity, accountability, and fiscal responsibility.

Secondly, they finally came together and agreed there would be a balanced budget amendment vote in the House and the Senate before this year end, with incentives for us to vote for that balanced budget amendment. For the first time since 1995--the first time in 16 years--the Congress of the United States will be debating, forcing itself to do what every American family has to do. There is not a family within the sound of my voice who has not had to sit down in the last 3 years in this country--because of our recession and our economy and because of spending--and reprioritize how they spend their money to balance their budget, to live within their means. It is about time the Congress of the United States asked of itself what it imposes on every family in America.

As far as the select committee, there was a fear among many that it would only be a paper tiger; that it would not have the claws or the teeth to actually do what it needs to do on the cuts. While I would have done a different type of sequestration, I commend those who negotiated this sequestration on putting one in that has enough teeth and enough fear to force this select committee to do what it needs to do.

Today, when I vote in favor of this agreement, I will be voting for us to cut spending where we need to--not as much as I would have liked but a lot more than we have ever seen before--but, most importantly, voting for the assurance that never again will a debt ceiling go up without a debate for commensurate cuts in spending. That is important. I will be voting for this because we will have a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House of Representatives that we have long needed since the last one failed 16 years ago. And we finally have a sequestration mechanism or an enforcement mechanism to enforce the select committee to do what it is charged to do in this particular legislation.

My frustration I expressed on Saturday is gone. My pride in the Senate is restored, and I look forward to casting my vote in favor of this agreement at 12 o'clock today.